My Family
by Lawi01
Summary: It'd be hard to sum up my family in just a few words- two depressed grandmothers, a mad aunt and a fatherless cousin, a rebellious aunt, a drunk grandfather, two war-weary parents and a loveable lump of a little brother. A little dysfunctional, a little functional, very special. A post-Mockingjay one shot from the Everlark daughter.


**A/N: Waaah! Sorry for hiatus- I've been having a massive writer's block for all my stories, not to mention a serious lack of motivation. I've had to give up a few of my current projects so I can focus and get the last few over with- I'm so close to finishing! **

**I promise I'm about to get straight to work on those, but until then I wrote down some **_**Hunger Games **_**stuff to relieve some stress. I'm re-reading the trilogy for the first time since I read it in January- all of my friends have been borrowing my copies- and **_**Lord **_**there are **_**Mockingjay **_** feelings everywhere. So, the unanswered questions, answered. **

**Also- I got a WattPad account :D My username is redesign_me and I have started a story I've been sitting on since I was eight or so, so if you'd like to check it out feel free! Until then, enjoy as ever, lovely readers :)**

It'd be hard to sum up my family in just a few words- maybe because the majority of my 'family' aren't even family at all. In fact, outside of my parents, my grandmother and my little brother I don't have a single living blood relative. And yet, there is a select group of people to whom I always refer to as 'grandfather', 'grandmother', 'aunt', 'uncle', 'cousin'. So you're beginning to see how my family is complicated. The factors aren't just genetic, though- there's something about the way that my family functions that's hard to place. We're not dysfunctional, but we're not exactly functional either. We have a lot of things other families don't, but there are a lot of families who have everything we don't- like actually _seeing _their family members on a regular basis.

Take my grandmother, for example. My real grandmother, my only other living blood relative. She's a travelling nurse- she goes where she's needed, when she's needed to. The people of the districts don't need healing now like they apparently used to, but she's still always busy enough to rarely have time to see us. If she's coming past, or even through, District 12, she always stops by to say hello, and for a while she looks happy, playing with my brother, chatting to me. But every visit, it's the same- she will watch my parents laughing together, or see a pair of old leather boots, or linger at the bed of primroses outside our house, and when she can bear it no longer and leaves, never to return, at least for a few months. It's not that she doesn't approve of her daughter's husband, or is a neat freak and hates the sight of mangy old boots lying around, or is allergic to primroses. Everything here, apart from my brother and I, reminds her of her painful old life here. Of her loving husband, the previous owner of my mother's boots, killed in a mine accident. Of her beautiful daughter named after the flowers that grow outside our house, the aunt I never knew, killed in the war that had precedence to my birth. My father says that's why she works so much: it's how she copes. Just works and works and works to keep herself distracted. With that in mind, it's hard to feel any degree of resentment for her flighty nature: District 12 is too full of pain for her. It would be cruel to keep her here. And anyway, I have a 'fake' grandmother to make up for it. Not that I see Effie Trinket much more than I do Larkspur Everdeen. She used to be my parents escort in the Hunger Games, and apparently she always used to dress up in ridiculous wigs and extravagant clothes. She's 'natural' now, though- my father sometimes jokes that he would never have permitted her to represent his mother at my parents wedding if she'd dressed the way she usually did in the old Capitol. Beneath her lively, bubbly exterior, though, there's something else. Something she only relaxes into when she thinks no-one else is watching. Sometimes, a heavy burden bends her shoulders forward and draws her eyebrows together and sends her eyes wandering into a world unseen to the rest of us. I quietly asked my mother about this once when I was younger: she said it was guilt. When I turned to my father for further explanation, he told me that after the war many Capitol residents were overcome with self-loathing at the way they had supported the Hunger Games and everything it represented. And as an escort, someone who drew children's names at the reaping every year, Effie had always felt this somewhat more acutely than other people. Because I know this, I often find it hard to roll my eyes at her persisting Capitol ways the way most other people do. After all, everyone was accepted into this family for a reason: they have no-one else.

Well, except for my aunt. One of them. Annie Cresta of District 4, too far for me to visit too often. Another tribute in the Hunger Games, before my parents were reaped. Whatever she saw in the arena was enough to drive her mad. She's not even that bad, really- looking at her, you wouldn't even be able to tell. But sometimes she just stops talking mid-sentence and looks off into the distance, or laughs for no apparent reason, or shuts out the world completely and curls up into a little ball, head pressed against her knees, hands clapped over her ears. Whenever this happens, her son is the first to swoop in to save her. He's older than me, old enough to move out and start a family of his own, but he refuses to leave his mother. How can he, when only his words will bring her back to earth? It's been a while since I saw them last, but I remember the first time clearly enough. I was seven: my mother had just announced that she was pregnant with my little brother, and so my little makeshift family had pulled off a little get-together in District 4 to celebrate. Among other people, I spoke with Annie and her son, my 'cousin', and spent much of the time playing in the surf with him. It was only later, when I lay between my parents in their bed that same night, that I realized something was missing.

"Where is Annie's husband?" I asked them.

They exchanged a glance, heavy with words I couldn't read, and then my father turned to me to explain. All he told me at the time was that Finnick Odair was a soldier who loved Annie very much but died in the war shortly after marrying her. Later, when I was older, I would read the beautiful book my parents compiled of loved ones come and gone and discover so much more. That Finnick won his Hunger Games, was sold off by the Capitol, was reaped again for the Quarter Quell and fought as an ally to my parents. That he broke down at Annie's capture by the Capitol, that he was a different man entirely when she was returned to him and they were finally wedded. Other little things, like his skills with a trident, his fondness for sugar cubes, the stunning sea green shade of his eyes. But there is one thing I will never forget: whenever Annie drifted off into her mind, it was Finnick and Finnick alone who could save her. It wasn't until the next time I saw them that I fully noticed just how much my cousin loved sugar cubes and just how mesmerizing his sea green eyes were, and every time after that whenever Annie drifted off and he had to coax her back to reality all I could see in his place was the ghostly shape of the man I never knew. And the sadness crashed over me like the waves on the beach outside Annie's house.

My other aunt wouldn't succumb to anything like that quite so easily, though. The thing with my parents is, they know most of the people they know through the Hunger Games. So it really shouldn't come as a surprise that my Aunt Johanna was also a victorious tribute who fought again with my parents, just like Finnick. It's not funny, but it's strange to look at how horribly Annie was affected by the Games and all they entail and then look at Johanna- twice reaped as a tribute, captured and tortured by the Capitol, and she's a fighter if I ever saw one. I have never once seen her do what anyone tells her or agree to what anyone says. She always says exactly what comes into her head and can do things with an axe that would make you flee with terror. She and my mother always address each other as 'brainless', but it's not all traded insults. Johanna is probably the closest thing my mother has to a best friend. My father and Johanna are also closer than you'd expect- 'bonded through trauma', or so Haymitch says. I never bothered to find out the details. I guess Johanna must be pretty sociable when she wants to be, but when I first met her I was terrified. I clung tight to my father's leg, hiding behind him as they swapped greetings. Johanna said something to my father, a dark joke I didn't understand, but whatever it was it made my mother glare at her and scold her for saying such things in front of me. I don't think Johanna had noticed me before that, but when she did she grinned.

"Oh yeah, the little Mellark," she said, crouching down so that we were at eye level. I hid further behind my father. "I forgot about you. What's your name?"

I told her, very quietly, avoiding her eye. She gave me hers in exchange and offered her hand. I shook it tentatively: it was rough but strong, like my father's, but more from working with an axe as opposed to in a bakery.

By the end of the day, we were friends. Johanna Mason turned out to be more kid-friendly than I'd anticipated, and as I grew older and began to understand more about the Games and their terrible history it was easier to talk to her than it was to Annie- at least with Johanna I didn't have to think over my every sentence carefully to make sure I didn't let slip anything that would trigger bad memories. Over time, just like she became my mother's closest thing to a best friend, Johanna would become the closest thing I have to a sister, from advice to insults. Even if she claims independency from everyone, I know she's glad to have us to lean on. I'd like to visit her more often.

The same can't quite be said for my grandfather, given that I see him every day. For the most part, he lives with us- technically, the house next to ours is still his, but just like everyone else in our family he has no-one but us and so he stays here in a spare room hopelessly bare of personal belongings but kept constantly clean unlike his old house, quickly falling into disrepair. On top of the fact that if he did stay in his house he would probably starve or freeze to death, there's also the whole thing that my parents have about taking care of him. Haymitch Abernathy mentored both of my parents in both of their Games, and even when they weren't in the arena did everything he could to keep them alive. And now, the way they see it, it's time to repay him, particularly for my mother- she's not huge on being in other people's debt, and even if she and Haymitch bicker about everything all the time my father assures me it's because they're just so alike. And, of course, he does need constant looking-after, given that he's almost always drunk. And I don't blame him for it- if I had been through what he has, I probably would've succumbed to drink a long time ago too. I don't know exactly what even happened to him in the dreaded arena of the Hunger Games, and I would never ask, but just knowing that he had to fight and live with the consequences is as reasonable an excuse as any for hiding in a liquor-induced wonderland. And anyway, we get along reasonably well- I think having kids around is therapeutic for him in a way. When my brother and I were really little, he'd let us climb all over him like monkeys. My brother still does: I'm a little too old for that now. But when he becomes the last-resort babysitter on a few rare occasions, we can spend hours in front of the fire, playing card games, swapping stories. My mother was terrified to leave my brother and I alone with him for a few days the first time, but I think coming home to find all three of us crashed out together on the couch consoled her enough to trust him a little more. After that she began to 'force' him to come and pick my brother and I up from school, so he could 'get some fresh air', but I know that it wasn't just punishment for Haymitch because even now, when I'm old enough to walk us home on my own, he still comes at the end of every school day to collect us. And neither of us object- even if he's an unbearable drunk, when he's sober he's like a big brother to all of us and I know that everyone cares about Haymitch more than they let on. I know my mother does- sometimes, when Haymitch is very drunk and my mother is very tired, you can see how much they truly care for each other. Like when the liquor ran out and stores weren't replenished for a while. Haymitch suffered a terrible withdrawal and even though I was forbidden by my parents to see him, sometimes his screams would drift over to my house or I would catch a glimpse of him curled up in a corner, trembling with terror, through a grimy window. That was the first time I saw it, the genuine care my mother has for cranky old Haymitch. She barely left his side until the train arrived, and then wasted no time in lugging as much liquor to Haymitch's house as she could hold. I'm sure she knows it's not good for him physically, but I think she cares more about his mental health than anything.

Given that he's seven, highly likeable and surrounded by people who love him, I think it's safe to say that, unlike Haymitch, my little brother has plenty of people to lean on. So then the only reason he could be part of my family is that he is my blood relative and, of course, he is. He looks exactly like my father, but he has my mother's eyes. His thin fingers can weave snares to trap animals in the time it takes to say a sentence and I've seen him strip bushes of berries faster than my mother can nock and shoot and arrow. His small hands are steady and precise: a painter's hands, just like my father's. He can spend hours at a time hunting with my mother and I in the woods or just sitting in the studio upstairs, listening with enchantment as my father teaches him everything he knows about painting. He also inherited my father's way with words: he can cheer anyone up, convince them to do anything, make them believe the most ludicrous of ideas- all with a few words. I've always wondered how he does it, but my mother tells me it's a skill and a rare one, one that she's only ever seen in my father and brother.

If you were to ask me, I'd tell you that my father is a remarkable man. Most of the kids at school think so, too- the things he can do with a paintbrush or even just a few cups of frosting would blow your mind, and he can bake pretty much anything you ask him to. But there is much more, so much more to my father than just paintings and cupcakes. He doesn't have anyone else besides our little family- his own were all killed when District 12 was bombed in the war, and yet in spite of this and everything else he has endured he is possibly one of the happiest men I know. He was reaped for the Hunger Games once, volunteered for the Quell a year later and, a little over a week later, was captured by the Capitol and put through months of psychological and physical torture. I don't know exactly what they did to him- I could never ask- but sometimes he just falls silent and grasps whatever he is holding so tightly I think his knuckles might explode. It's in these moments when I think of Annie and her son, because the moment his muscles become taught my mother is at his side. She doesn't speak much, but she eases his fingers away from whatever it is they are grasping and clasps them in her own and waits, pressing her forehead against his with her eyes tight shut, like she is radiating some thought of hers into his head. Often when this happens Haymitch quietly takes us out of the room, but sometimes I linger to make sure my father is OK. When he comes back- and he always does- he gives her a tired, grateful smile and kisses her. That's part of the reason he's so happy, I know- my mother. I know their story like the back of my hand because I heard it so often when I was little. On the first day of school, my father heard my mother singing and fell in love with her, watching her from a distance every day after that. He didn't actually speak to her until his name was reaped in the same Games that my mother volunteered for her little sister, little Primrose. Under Haymitch's direction as mentor they played up a 'star-crossed lovers' angle to win the audience's sympathies, only for my father it wasn't just an act. The whole lovers thing worked well enough to bring them both home from the Capitol, but was broken upon discovering my mother was being insincere about her exact degree of affection for him. Following that, it's a long, painful rollercoaster of events that lead to their drifting away from each other, coming together again, being torn apart and finally becoming one. But through it all, I know that my father was always genuine, had truly loved my mother from the start. It's not hard to see- for the most part, it takes real devotion to stay by someone's side every night as they scream and thrash about, fighting off vicious nightmares. But then there are the smiles he seems to reserve especially for her, the way he presses his lips into her hair, the way his eyes soften when he looks at her, the way that, when he hugs her, his arms encircle her so protectively you wonder if he will ever let go.

My mother seems slightly less sentimental, but let me tell you now that she is certainly not emotionless. You need only take a look at her life to know that: the depression of her father's death, the trauma of being thrown into the arena twice, the pressure of leading a war and the pain of losing so many people she cared about and, finally and maybe most unforgettably, the death of her beloved little sister. Knowing my mother like I do, it's not hard to imagine what a wreck she would have been after the war. These things still haunt her- I've heard her screaming for too long not to know that. She finds solace in two things: hunting in the forest, and my father, brother and I. This family is all she has left. And while she may not be quite so open about her feelings as my father is, I know she loves each of us unconditionally. There's something in the subconscious way she closes her eyes as she presses her face into my little brother's hair, the smile that upturns her lips as she does so. There's something in the way that she always cuddles up close to my father on the couch, the way she always takes care to intertwine her fingers with his before drifting off to sleep each night. There's something in the way that she holds me tighter than anyone else, something in the way she braids my hair carefully every morning and kisses my forehead when she's done. Most of all, there's something in the quiet smiles she shoots people when they're not looking. When my father is painting, when my brother is playing, sometimes for no apparent reason at all. Those smiles are so rare, so beautiful, so full of warmth, that it's almost a shame the receiver doesn't see them. But I do. I see all the things other people don't pay much attention to.

Which just leaves me. I look exactly like my mother, but I have my father's eyes. And while my brother's hands are small and graceful, mine are bigger and stronger- better for shooting arrows, better for rolling dough into fine loaves of bread. But the one other trait I inherited from my parents, perhaps the one I am most proud of, is my mother's voice. She may not speak much, but when she sings she has the most beautiful voice I have ever heard and it's easy to see how my father fell in love with that voice. She only ever sings for my brother and I, usually more to get us to sleep than anything, but when she does you can hear all of the birds outside falling silent to listen. And I know that I have her voice because on the rare occasion that I sing- when I am safe in the loneliness of my room or the forest beyond District 12- all of the birds outside go quiet and listen to what I have to sing before relaying it back to me. Mockingjays are very special birds.

There, you see? Not dysfunctional, not completely functional, very special. Everyone in my family was brought together through the Hunger Games or the war that raged as a result. Not the most likely places to found a mish-mash family group, but there is one thing I can say for the war and everything it's done to the people in my family: it's taught them how to really love. To love someone like this day might be their last because they lived in a time when it could have been. And even if we are tipping towards dysfunctional, I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my family love each other like no other family ever will.


End file.
